The Pearl

John Steinbeck

Chapter 6

Key Facts

1.

“In
the town they tell the story of the great pearl—how it was found
and how it was lost again. They tell of Kino, the fisherman, and
of his wife, Juana, and of the baby, Coyotito. And because the story
has been told so often, it has taken root in every man’s mind. And,
as with all retold tales that are in people’s hearts, there are
only good and bad things and black and white things and good and
evil things and no in-between anywhere.
“If this story is a parable, perhaps everyone takes
his own meaning from it and reads his own life into it. In any case, they
say in the town that. . . .”

This quotation is Steinbeck’s epigraph
to The Pearl. In introducing his novella as a legend
(he first heard the legend of the Pearl of the World in a Mexican
village), Steinbeck sets the tone for the story. He also establishes
the parable’s moral universe, in which there “are only good and
bad things . . . and no in-between.” Most important, the measured
formal language of the epigraph evokes biblical verse and therefore
suggests that The Pearl is a parable before Steinbeck himself
even alludes to this possibility. Because the epigraph leads directly
into Chapter 1 (the first sentence in Chapter 1 effectively concludes
the unfinished final sentence of the epigraph), it also creates
the sense that we have been taken directly to the source of the legend.
The quotes that surround the epigraph give us the sense that someone
is telling us a story and that the novella that follows is the storyteller’s
tale.

2.

The
ants were busy on the ground, big black ones with shiny bodies and
the little dusty quick ants. Kino watched with the detachment of
God while a dusty ant frantically tried to escape the sand trap
an ant lion had dug for him.
He watched the ants moving, a little column of them
near to his foot, and he put his foot in their path. Then the column
climbed over his instep and continued on its way, and Kino left
his foot there and watched them move over it.

These two quotations are from Chapter 1 and
Chapter 6, respectively. Kino’s two encounters
with ants are not important to the novel’s plot, but they reveal
a great deal about Kino’s position and attitude at two key moments
in the novel and thus form an important contrast with one another.
The quotation from Chapter 1 occurs during
the idyllic opening description of Kino and Juana’s life. Kino’s
detached attitude toward nature suggests that he is a part of nature
but also above it, like God. The description of the ant caught in
the sand trap is a subtle instance of foreshadowing, as it mirrors
Kino’s eventual experience as a helpless prisoner of his own ambition.

The quotation from Chapter 6 describes
Kino after the pearl has corrupted him. He is no longer detached
from nature, and therefore he is no longer like God. Yet, as he
becomes more animal-like, he aspires to be more like God by trying
to affect the ants’ behavior when he places his foot in their path.
He does not succeed in changing nature, however; rather, nature
simply renders him insignificant, as the ants methodically ignore
him and climb over his shoe. As Kino’s greed brings him from his
initial human dignity to a plane closer to that of animals, he loses
something essential to his humanity, as well as the easy, simple
relationship with nature he enjoys early in the novella.

3.

But
the pearls were accidents, and the finding of one was luck, a little
pat on the back by God or the gods or both.

This short quotation is from Chapter 2, when
Kino prepares to make the dive on which he finds the Pearl of the
World. The narrator contends that certain occurrences that shape
human life are accidents willed by a divine power, events over which
human beings have no control. It becomes clear that the discovery
of pearls is a function of such seemingly arbitrary divine fate.
Kino’s eventual downfall can thus be seen as not entirely his own
fault. The quotation also subtly alludes to the mixed cultural background
of the natives in The Pearl: they come from a culture
in which people believe in more than one god but have been governed
for centuries by Catholic Spaniards who have built churches in which
only a single God is worshipped. As a result, the natives are spiritually
somewhat ambivalent, unsure as to whether the higher power in which they
believe consists of “God” or “the gods.”

4.

In
the pearl he saw Coyotito sitting at a little desk in a school,
just as Kino had once seen it through an open door. And Coyotito
was dressed in a jacket, and he had on a white collar and a broad
silken tie. Moreover, Coyotito was writing on a big piece of paper.
Kino looked at his neighbors fiercely. “My son will go to school,”
he said, and the neighbors were hushed. . . .
Kino’s face shone with prophecy. “My son will read
and open the books, and my son will write and will know writing.
And my son will make numbers, and these things will make us free
because he will know—he will know and through him we will know.
. . . This is what the pearl will do.”

This passage from Chapter 3 describes
the moment of Kino’s pivotal decision to direct all his energies
toward using the pearl to obtain an education for Coyotito. Kino’s
ambition constitutes an attempt to shake the foundations of his
society by placing his son on a level with the natives’ European
oppressors. The vehemence with which Kino reacts to his vision,
as well as the hushed silence with which the neighbors hear it,
is a testament to the improbable nature of Kino’s plan not only
to improve his son’s lot but to break “free” of a centuries-long
cycle of oppression. From this moment forward, Kino remains obsessed
with his goal, which he can achieve only by making a great deal
of money from his pearl. The image of Coyotito as an equal to the
colonists transfixes Kino throughout the novella.

5.

And
the evils of the night were about them. The coyotes cried and laughed
in the brush, and the owls screeched and hissed over their heads.
And once some large animal lumbered away, crackling the undergrowth
as it went. And Kino gripped the handle of the big working knife
and took a sense of protection from it.

This quotation from Chapter 6 demonstrates
how Kino’s relationship with nature has changed, symbolizing his
personal and moral downfall. In general, Steinbeck portrays the
natural world positively in The Pearl, using beautiful
language and images of sun-drenched scenery. This scene reverses
that trend, as Steinbeck illustrates the dark and frightening aspect
of nature. We sense that the universe itself opposes Kino’s course
of action. Kino himself reveals an adversarial relationship with
nature by his defensive gripping of his knife handle to reassure
himself. Where Kino earlier lived in harmony with nature, his ambition
has made him nature’s enemy.

I fail to see how Kino is greedy. Kino's dreams of rifles and new clothes were for his family. He wanted a rifle and a harpoon so that he could obtain food for his family. He wanted new clothes so that his family would be accepted by society. Most of all, he wanted Coyotito to get an education so that Kino and his people would learn the truth- how they've been lied to by the colonists. If Coyotito got an education, he would be able to see how wrong everything was, and through him, Kino.